Sunday

I got up around 6. I did gumdo. I sat down and tried to do 2 hours of meditation. I've done well with meditation but today hunger set in. So I ate a massive breakfast of salad greens and sweet potatoes.

Yang came over at 11. We took the chain saws to cut the branches of trees that Yang will use for building wood.

We got to the site. We try to start the chain saws. They wouldn't start. Exchanges of looks and laughter. After 20 minutes of at the site trying Yang drove us back to the house to get out his tools.

He shuffled through his messy toolshed and got out an air compressor. I felt increasing anticipation of failure as we've tried three times in the last week to get these to work. He blew   air through the machine.

People came over to give us gas. Yang talked with friends while I called my wife who I've only communicated with by text as we both have been busy.

She told me about her great templestay experience. Good things have come.

We finished the conversation.

I told Yang about the great experience. I was decided on going and that it was going to happen.

"Decide slowly," Yang advised.

"This is so exciting."

"Remember that in the happy times to prepare yourself for the bad times. Gather strength"

"Like the story of the old man and the horse."

"Yes."

"Yes, you're right. I should prepare."

"Okay Greg pick vegetables from the garden some gatnip- not too many. For bimbimpap."

He gather medicinal herbs.

"I'm making incense in this dish."

"What are those?"

"These are medicinal herbs."

I recognized black henbane berries but the other I didn't recognize. There was no time to learn as Yang was cooking now.

I chopped and plated. We moved around each other, him chopping and frying vegetables and medicinal herbs while I chopped garden vegetables.

"Let's eat outside."

We sat outside. Then we began our conversations.

"Have you tried the Gwanju bimbimpap?

"No, I have heard it has many different vegetables. What do you think?"

"I think it is a perfect food. It has many traditional vegetables. But many bimbipaps have lot s of additives for the taste- for yummy."

"Yes."

"I want to take the food and put the organic foods from my farm- and make it tasty."

This describes my affinity for what he is doing. What I'm trying to do with ketchup, hotsauce, beer and other western foods, he wants to do the same with Korean food. Food should be healthy and delicious.

We looked out over the fields of his neighbor who was growing tangerines. The only plant to survive the herbicides was seurebirum. Far different from the herbal farm on which we have to weed a lot.

"I think that if my neighbor's farm was mine then many medicinal herbs could grow there. But with the weedicide and pesticide nothing can grow. Only seurebirum. It's a strong weed."

The beauty of medicinal plants is that to farmers they are weeds because they grow so well, but are in fact part of the ecosystem. I thought about what Yang said about his horse eating the grasses sometimes and the medicinal plants at the other times. We were eating some of them as he spoke. What is wonderful about these herbs is that once you identify the medicinal plants than its a matter of weeding around them. The best way to do this is talk to the plants. This communication is not an oral communication but something more ethereal. Working around them and curiosity and hearing the lore about them. Doing research and it got better.

"I am thinking about coming here and doing more meditating. But common people don't understand me. You see if a top temple master meditates for his family he removes their karma. But if the family karma is high then it's difficult."

"I understand your situation. When your friends want to go to the restaurant to eat pork or your family wants to eat chicken."

He laughed. "There is no answer to that."

"Yes, I realize this too. It's a difficult situation."

Its difficult here because family and friends are everything. There is no room for loners or disregard of convention. And in this culture we go to restaurants when friends ask us and when friends come to dinner and bring meat we eat it. I struggle every time to get something positive from it.

"The karma is getting worse and will get worse in the future. The negative energy is gathering around us. With the pigs and cows, 5 million were burried."

He was referring to the fact that last year there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The solution to the problem was to corral the 5 million animals and then burry them alive. It made some hesitant to eat meat and is one of many horrible scenarios that will unfold as people disrespect the food for easy money and cheap eats. Yangs pigs are not sick and don't need antibiotics because they live outside and aren't corralled into small pens. They are fed healthy food and also eat veg on the tangerine farm.

The factory farm situation is certainly something I choose to opt out of.

We were cut off. People interested in consultation for their eating came. Yang asked me to give them yeju cha, which is a cold tea of a tangerine jam and cold water.

He came in.

"Greg shall we do meditation."

"Okay, great I was thinking the same thing."

We sat down and did two hours of meditation. My back which use to kill was doing well. And my breathing was getting better. But the point is to clear of your mind of stress to continue doing your lifes tasks with a good mindset.

We finished. I went outside and did gumdo.

Yang told me soccer was cancelled. There weren't enough players. He was going home to work on the documentation for the time. Yang is waiting to hear about if his farm will be getting sponsorship by the government to expand his farm. The Jeju government wants to let people know about the organic situation in Jeju and the town wants his farm to be a model farm for the area. However, it's small for there standards. It can only feed guests of the healing farm and the workers. It works well as a laboratory for food development and as a healing center.

"I'll find out tomorrow."

"I pray things turn out good for you."

We said goodbye and I went inside.

It was dinner time so I ate left over fish soup and half a watermelon and I watched through the window, the golden retriever puppies chase each other around.